Overview participating exhibitions

IN VIVO | the nature of nature2018

Jon Cazenave

UR AITZ

In UR AITZ, Jon Cazenave gives photographs a new layer of meaning, inspired by visits to Paleolithic caves in various locations across Europe. He paints his images with mineral pigments that he extracts from the very same nature he has photographed. For this, he uses the same painting technique that people from the Paleolithic period, many thousands of years ago, must have used to create ritual cave wall paintings. In juxtaposing the pigments with a documentary depiction of the nature they are derived from, he evokes various layers of reality. Cazenave creates a meeting of the present with our most ancestral past, from a time when the term ‘landscape’ was still free from the human cultural gaze. The title of his series refers to the rock – aitz in Basque – from which the pigment is extracted, and the water – ur – which it is subsequently diluted with.

Hiruki Belagua, 2017

Terra Cognita2012

Jon Cazenave

Amalur (Basque Country, 2007-2012)

The Spanish photographer Jon Cazenave was born in the Basque country, a region with a strong thirst for autonomy. The Basque country is set off from the rest of Spain by mountains, permitting the growth of a vital language and culture. In its landscape, Cazenave says, nature blends with history and legend. The result is a mythic, magical land – the subject of Cazenave’s photography. By humanizing trees and animals, he creates a symbolic landscape that lays bare the soul of the Basques.

Amalur 2

2009

Amalur 4

2011

Amalur 10

2011

Biography

Jon Cazenave (Spain, 1978) graduated as an economist from the University of Deusto in 2001. Since 2007, he has been working on Galerna, a long-term project about his Basque roots. His work has been exhibited at the photography festivals of Les Rencontres de la Photographie d´Arles, Photoespaña and the Tokyo International Photography Festival. In 2012, his series AMA LUR was exhibited at the Noorderlicht Photofestival Terra Cognita.